Yan Dao's Techie Corner

First Things After Fresh Installation of a Linux Server

Introduction

Some good practice after a fresh installation of a Linux-based server. Fundamental stuff that somehow always escape my mind. Applicable for Debian-based and RPM-based distros.

Add non-root user

# useradd -m <user>
# passwd <user>

Allow sudo access

# visudo

	...

	## Allows people in group admin to run all commands
	%admin ALL=(ALL) ALL

# groupadd admin
# usermod -a -G admin <user>
# id <user>

Setup SSH

Install OpenSSH

$ sudo apt-get install openssh-server

OR

$ sudo yum -y install openssh-server

Check that sshd is running and port 22 is open

$ ps ax | grep sshd
$ netstat -tulpn | grep :22

	tcp     0     0 0.0.0.0:22     0.0.0.0:*     LISTEN     -  

$ cat /etc/sysconfig/iptables | grep 22

	-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport 22 -j ACCEPT

$ sudo vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config

	...

	PermitRootLogin no

Restart SSH server

$ sudo service ssh restart

OR

$ sudo /sbin/service sshd restart

NOTE: CentOS doesn’t include /sbin in $PATH by default for whatever reason. Edit ~/.bash_profile accordingly.

Done

Now we can SSH into the server from a remote host and start setting up stuff.

References

Published

11 October 2012

Tags

Table of Contents